acm28, posts by tag: writing - LiveJournal

So, I finished my novel.

Well, not really. I finished a draft of my novel. I finished the most complete draft I've had yet. It has all the bits I really want to have in the book, with none of the filler. It is pitifully short for a book, but I have a feeling that there are many changes left to come. I have given the draft to both my parents to read and comment on. They haven't read it before, and they both have very different reading styles and types of books they like, so their input will be very helpful. Over J-term (and possibly a little bit over winter break itself) I plan to take this draft out again and read it, and edit, and look for the spots that need explanation. I'll also have my parents' feedback (inherently biased, yes, but they have been honest with me about my writing before, if something doesn't make sense or seems stupid, I'm sure they'll tell me). My goal is to have a better, fuller story by the end of January. And then...
...well, I'll have to see where I am at that point. More editing, more asking for opinions, etc. But then...
...well, this draft is the best I've had yet. I'm actually really happy with it. I'm proud of the world I created. I want to dive back in, but it feels like actually, this might be the beginning of the end. Like maybe, someday, I'll be sending this to agents. Like I should probably learn how to write a query letter but I'm not going to because first I have to learn how to write a resume.

Anyway... link spam!

Globalization (video) with a... possitive spin on it?

Is Globalization Good or Bad? (video)

Capitalism and Socialism (video) Pst, Mr. Green, your capitalist bias is showing!

Occupy Movement to Buy Consumer Debt and Throw It Away to Save Our Economy, kind of like Iceland did, and they've been growing economically since...

More on Rolling Jubilee

Idiotic Governance: How Our Political Discourse Hurts Our Economy (video)

Understanding the National Debt and Budget Deficit (video)

Why The Rich Pay Lower Taxes (video)

On States Getting More Than They Give (video)

Mount Holyoke to Continue Tuition Freeze "We recognize that the U.S. model for higher education is not sustainable, so we can't continue to raise tuition, and have burgeoning loan burdens and have job prospects be uncertain for students," says Lynn Pasquerella, president of the college.

Sixteen Tons Cover (song/video) it's a pretty song, and catchy, and stuff, but it's also about poverty and exploitation of American laborers

The Hypocracy of Brands (video)

How Things Have Value (video)

I have, I guess, been weirdly creatively productive lately. I wrote a song and learned how to play the guitar well enough to accompany myself singing it. I recently had a photoshoot at the beach with The Dancer, and I'm probably going to do headshots for a friend sometime soon. I also had a breakthrough idea plot-wise, in regards to Little Sparrow, which is still far from done, but at least I now know how I'm going to get my narrator to agree to do something unlike her character for the sake of the greater good (which she doesn't care much about, so...) I have a lot of photos to edit (yay!) and in general feel good and happy and like I am doing things I should be doing.
Also I'm back on my meds, which makes a huge difference.

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Gallows Humor and the Dangerous Mentally Ill

If you really knew me (video) (personal story, potentially triggering)

Lowercase A anxiety, what I know is different than what I feel (video)

Uppercase A Anxiety, as described by a familiar face

Ability Privilege List

How To Prevent (some types of) Seizures

No photos for you today. I mean, there are photos, I took them, but right now I want to talk about something else. I want to talk about writing. Because, well, mostly because I can. This is my journal, I can talk about anything I want. Also because it's been on my mind lately.
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Dear Cohort,

Struggling with your novel? Paralyzed by the fear that it's nowhere near good enough? Feeling caught in a trap of your own devising? You should probably give up.

For one thing, writing is a dying form. One reads of this every day. Every magazine and newspaper, every hardcover and paperback, every website and most walls near the freeway trumpet the news that nobody reads anymore, and everyone has read these statements and felt their powerful effects. The authors of all those articles and editorials, all those manifestos and essays, all those exclamations and eulogies - what would they say if they knew you were writing something? They would urge you, in bold-faced print, to stop.

Clearly, the future is moving us proudly and zippily away from the written word, so writing a novel is actually interfering with the natural progress of modern society. It is old-fashioned and fuddy-duddy, a relic of a time when people took artistic expression seriously and found solace in a good story told well. We are in the process of disentangling ourselves from that kind of peace of mind, so it is rude for you to hinder the world by insisting on adhering to the beloved paradigms of the past. It is like sitting in a gondola, listening to the water carry you across the water, while everyone else is zooming over you in jetpacks, belching smoke into the sky. Stop it, is what the jet-packers would say to you. Stop it this instant, you in that beautiful craft of intricately-carved wood that is giving you such a pleasant journey.

Besides, there are already plenty of novels. There is no need for a new one. One could devote one's entire life to reading the work of Henry James, for instance, and never touch another novel by any other author, and never be hungry for anything else, the way one could live on nothing but multivitamin tablets and pureed root vegetables and never find oneself craving wild mushroom soup or linguini with clam sauce or a plain roasted chicken with lemon-zested dandelion greens or strong black coffee or a perfectly ripe peach or chips and salsa or caramel ice cream on top of poppyseed cake or smoked salmon with capers or aged goat cheese or a gin gimlet or some other startling item sprung from the imagination of some unknown cook. In fact, think of the world of literature as an enormous meal, and your novel as some small piddling ingredient - the drawn butter, for example, served next to a large, boiled lobster. Who wants that? If it were brought to the table, surely most people would ask that it be removed post-haste.

Even if you insisted on finishing your novel, what for? Novels sit unpublished, or published but unsold, or sold but unread, or read but unreread, lonely on shelves and in drawers and under the legs of wobbly tables. They are like seashells on the beach. Not enough people marvel over them. They pick them up and put them down. Even your friends and associates will never appreciate your novel the way you want them to. In fact, there are likely just a handful of readers out in the world who are perfect for your book, who will take it to heart and feel its mighty ripples throughout their lives, and you will likely never meet them, at least under the proper circumstances. So who cares? Think of that secret favorite book of yours - not the one you tell people you like best, but that book so good that you refuse to share it with people because they'd never understand it. Perhaps it's not even a whole book, just a tiny portion that you'll never forget as long as you live. Nobody knows you feel this way about that tiny portion of literature, so what does it matter? The author of that small bright thing, that treasured whisper deep in your heart, never should have bothered.

Of course, it may well be that you are writing not for some perfect reader someplace, but for yourself, and that is the biggest folly of them all, because it will not work. You will not be happy all of the time. Unlike most things that most people make, your novel will not be perfect. It may well be considerably less than one-fourth perfect, and this will frustrate you and sadden you. This is why you should stop. Most people are not writing novels which is why there is so little frustration and sadness in the world, particularly as we zoom on past the novel in our smoky jet packs soon to be equipped with pureed food. The next time you find yourself in a group of people, stop and think to yourself, probably no one here is writing a novel. This is why everyone is so content, here at this bus stop or in line at the supermarket or standing around this baggage carousel or sitting around in this doctor's waiting room or in seventh grade or in Johannesburg. Give up your novel, and join the crowd. Think of all the things you could do with your time instead of participating in a noble and storied art form. There are things in your cupboards that likely need to be moved around.

In short, quit. Writing a novel is a tiny candle in a dark, swirling world. It brings light and warmth and hope to the lucky few who, against insufferable odds and despite a juggernaut of irritations, find themselves in the right place to hold it. Blow it out, so our eyes will not be drawn to its power. Extinguish it so we can get some sleep. I plan to quit writing novels myself, sometime in the next hundred years.

--Lemony Snicket

From one of the pep talks emailed to NaNoWriMo 2010 Participants.

This "I Write Like" thing is going around like crazy. I decided to check it out.
5,000 words of Angel's Story is like David Foster Wallace.
5,000 words of The Fix Is In (2009 NaNo) is like Stephen King.
5,000 words of "Tea Boy" is like Dan Brown.
My short story "Robo Co" is like David Foster Wallace.
This LJ entry is like Dan Brown.

I hardly ever write during the summer. I don't know what it is. It's like a switch in my mind flicks off once I'm not busy any more. As soon as I have work to do and I'm busy and I have no time for writing, then the ideas come so fast I can hardly keep up. Once I have time to sit down and write those ideas, they leave.
I'm no stranger to writing despite it all. You can't just go and sit around waiting for inspiration to strike, but sometimes it would be nice to have a goal. Sometimes it feels like a waste of time. If I write despite having no plan, no plot, no ideas, I can fill pages upon pages with words, but they never come to anything.
Maybe it's because I'm starting at the beginning, and I need something to attach to. Maybe I should pick up "Tea Boy" again (in fact, I know I should, I went from daily updates to nothing and people want to know what happens next) but I don't know. I feel like the real story ended with the end of the first season, and now I'm beating a dead horse (horrible metaphor...)
Maybe the work is what fuels my mind. Maybe school and learning new things are the fuel for ideas. Maybe seeing my friends, having a social life, saps my need for writing. I write when I'm stressed, and I write when I'm bored, and I write most of all when I'm lonely. If you have people around to spend time with, you don't need to retreat back to the characters in your head. You don't need to practice their conversations while you walk to class if you can have real conversations instead.
But I wouldn't give up my friends for the world. And anyway, I haven't seen that much of everyone recently. Working over the summer makes it hard to coordinate schedules. Maybe that's it. Or maybe I'm just oblivious to what other people are doing so I don't know when we're getting together. That seems to be it most of the time. How many times do I get phone calls wondering if anyone's invited me to come too, and the answer is no?
Now I'm rambling a bit. I guess that's what I've been doing while trying to get ideas. Nothing is working. Maybe I should give up and read for a bit instead. There are so many books I want to finish. So many I haven't gotten the chance to pick up.

I just received an email telling me that my short story "Dinner and a Movie" has been accepted to publication in the literary magazine The MacGuffin. I don't have too many details, I can share more once I know what's happening, but it will likely be in the Fall 2010 edition. I have not gotten an official publication agreement yet, so we'll have to see still, but it looks like I'll get a copy of the published magazine or maybe two, and I'll probably be able to tell you where you can buy a copy if you wish, but I will let you know once I know more about this.

Just got myself an account over at Fiction Press. I will be uploading "Tea Boy," probably at a rate of a chapter or two a day until I'm caught up with myself. I might also add some older stories, we'll see. Nothing will go there that doesn't go on Deviant Art, it's just an attempt to get some of my stuff to a more literature-oriented audience.
We'll see.

A certain someone's livejournal entry (hi there!) about what it is to be working on a story made me think of all the old stories I've worked on before, and made me wonder how I ended up where I am now, writing a science fiction... epic. Thing. That I will now link shamelessly to, because I'm a whore like that.

whore
whore
whore
whore
whore

Anyway. About how I ended up here. I always used to love fantasy stories. The longest story I wrote for a long time was 73 pages hand written, and it was a lame fantasy story about thirteen-year-old twins that were totally perfect and awesome and you know the type. I gave up on it after a while, and I realized how much I hated it. I kept writing fantasy stories until my failed comic, "The Thirteenth Month." I don't gave up on that after I realized I preferred writing to drawing, and couldn't motivate myself to draw the panels anymore.
Then I was stuck firmly in reality, somewhere along the way I got my deviantart account and was stuck with the gay boys ("Roommates" being the main example) for a long time. And then, somehow, I started getting fantasy ideas. The difference was that it was modern fantasy, like in "100 Souls for Death," where I felt more comfortable than some fantasy world I had invented. And, separately, I experimented with the future, like in "The Revolution."
And now I'm playing with science fiction, and thinking about it like fantasy with science instead of magic makes me happy, and it makes a lot of sense, but I still look at the past several years and wonder how exactly I got these random ideas and characters.
And the transition's not exactly clear, is it? I mean, I jump back and forth, my ideas change, my plots get tangled and confused and stories remain unfinished, with promises that I'll return one day and intentions to go back, but I never will. It's hard, once you've left the world, to dive right back in. I find myself struggling to get back into the pace of "Tea Boy" after so long, but I don't want to drop the story, I love the characters. It's been less than a month, just because I didn't write a new chapter every day doesn't mean I didn't think about them, but now I'm not used to it any more. The pacing. It's... off. Catherine noticed it on one of the chapters shifting from the "blue aliens and torture" plot to the culmination of the "something's moving in the darkness" plot. It feels to me, not that it's too fast or too slow, but there just isn't enough between it. They should have walked across the wilderness longer, or hung out in the van more, or something. I don't know.
I'm getting off topic.
This always happens with livejournal entries.

I just had a conversation with my dad about how my grandfather was a great writer, but how he never did anything with his writing, how it never led to anything more. I hope he'll follow through with his plans to gather it all together and get it published, that would be really great. I at least want to read it.